Apparently there are people lined up and camping outside of the new Ikea store here in Colorado in anticipation of the grand opening.
Look, I get it, Ikea coming to town is exciting – I’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. But seriously, camping out two days before the opening?!? What is...

I’ve not posted in a while mostly because I’ve been busy but also because the things I’ve thought about posting have been really negative and I just didn’t want to go there. I was asked the following question late yesterday: “Tell me about something that brought you an unexpected smile today.”

What a terrific question. It took about three seconds for me to remember this moment and the smile it brought to my face:

I’m a bit nuts about my hairy children but let me tell you, on even the very worst of days they bring a smile to my face and joy to my heart.

Apparently there are people lined up and camping outside of the new Ikea store here in Colorado in anticipation of the grand opening.

Look, I get it, Ikea coming to town is exciting – I’ve been waiting for years for this to happen. But seriously, camping out two days before the opening?!? What is the point?

Don’t these people have jobs? And, if they don’t, what the hell are they doing at Ikea? They won’t be able to buy anything.

I’m a card carrying shopoholic but I have way better things to do than camp out in front of an Ikea in anticipation of opening day. Furthermore, while I’m downright giddy over the fact that we’ll have an Ikea – I have little post-it flags littering the pages of my latest Ikea catalog – I will be NOWHERE near that place for the first couple of weeks. The hoards of rude, unconscious people paying no attention to anyone else on the planet but themselves and their herds of unruly kids running around like wild animals does not sound like fun times to me.

In the online era, it can be hard to repair a damaged online reputation — but it’s not impossible.

While there are several strategies for overcoming negative information that has been posted on the web, perhaps the best is to create your own content and drive the bad or erroneous stuff down in search engine rankings. No one but your worst enemy will bother to visit Page 20 on a Google search; most readers will stick to the first page or two. Creating a robust social media and online presence guarantees that the top results will be the ones you want people to see. Studies by Forrester Research have shown that video, in particular, is prized by Google and will rank highly, so you might want to consider a video blog. Traditional blogs, because their content is updated frequently, are also search-engine-friendly. Creating profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter also helps since they frequently show up at or near the top of Internet searches, and it also never hurts to get quoted in the media or write articles for various publications.

All of these strategies benefit brand you so you should be doing them anyway but they are particularly important if negative information has been posted about you.

Of all the Ted.com presentations I’ve seen over the years this is, without question, one of the most powerful. I encourage every man to watch this – especially men with children – Tony Porter speaks to Ted Women from his own experiences. He articulates clearly the conflict that many of us have as men.